EVESHAM’S title hopes suffered a huge blow after going down to fellow contenders Stourport in Worcestershire League Division One.
Second-placed Stourport sealed a 34-run away win to leave Evesham in third place – 47 points behind leaders Bewdley with four matches to play.
Evesham will look to bounce back on Saturday when they head to Worcester Nomads.
Evesham won the toss and inserted Stourport and the ploy seemed to have worked when the visitors stumbled to 13-3 after three wickets for Adnan Sagheer.
However, Ryan Derrick (35) and Michael Pratt (26) added 53 runs for the fourth wicket and then David Pittaway (26) and Neil Bailey (28) put on 47 for the sixth wicket as they eked out the runs.
Stourport were finally dismissed for 176 off the last ball of their innings, with Sagheer the pick of the bowlers with 3-47 off 13 overs and Muhammad Saqib taking 2-22 and Mohammed Fahim Maan 2-17.
Evesham will have fancied their chances, especially at 44-1 and 101-5. They kept up with the run rate but wickets continued to fall and they were all out for 142 after 40.2 overs.
Muhammad Tahir Mirza top-scored with 31 and opener Saqib hit 23 but the rest of batsmen could not build the momentum required.
Derrick finished with 4-36 for Stourport.
Evesham seconds went down to a seven-wicket defeat at Lye 2nds in 2nd XI Division Two.
Having been put into bat, Evesham reached 147 all out, thanks chiefly to Malim Khan (35), Khizar Khan (31) and Nouman Zahoor (29) as David Borley (4-33) led the bowling attack.
In reply, Lye raced to their target in 23.3 overs, with Muhammad Usman Jillani smashing 78.
Evesham – third from bottom and 31 points clear of the drop zone – are at home to basement side Wormelow on Saturday.
